Well there are many talented photographers out there and I have my photographer of choice. I think that  Bouncin Baby Photography is just amazing. She took my son’s newborn photos at 1 day old and I will always remember her for it…they are beautiful. She’s offering great mini-session in the most beautiful Poppy field location and all for an awesome price. Be sure to check it out and book asap because the poppies will only be in bloom for a couple weeks!

Bouncin Baby Photography

But for those pictures that I want to capture their special features like his GIGANTIC blue eyes, or her chubby little cheeks, I use KD photography.   Her expertise is exceptional, her style is kid-comforting and  her skills are super professional. She is so CALM, which my little ones need.  I can’t believe how patient she was, especially when my little girl wouldn’t cooperate and we had to reschedule for another time.

Thank you, Katie, for an AMAZING experience!

KD Photography is an advertiser on Utah Mama, but my opinions are my own.

1. Open the template in Photoshop. Here is a screen shot of mine.

2. Make sure you are aware of the layers palette. It is in the right lower hand corner of the screen. This an important area for ALL projects. You need to be aware of it and what it does. For now just make sure you know where it is located. It looks like the photo below.

3. Open your pictures that you will be inserting into your template. Then drag them to their own window. (This simply means you will be able to see both your photo and your template at the same time. If you are not sure how to drag them to their own window, look for the top tabs with the photo names along the top of your open document window. Click the tab with your photo on it and drag it away from the screen you are currently on. The following picture shows what the top tabs look like.

This picture shows what your screen should look like when the photo is dragged away from your template.

4. Make sure your photo is selected. Move your  mouse to the layers palette. Select Background and drag it onto your template. Your document should then look something like this. Make sure that the layer you just placed into your document is above the shape of where you would like it to be placed.

See How my photo layer is above the shape I plan to clip it to below

5. Right click the photo layer and select create clipping mask.

6. Adjust your photo to fit the shape and move around as desired. Select a corner and hold shift to adjust size without distorting the image.

That is it! Simple! My finished template looks like this.

Experiment in making your own shapes to clip photos to as well. You can really do a number of different things with this. It will make your photo pages standout and it is pretty fun to do! Good luck! Don’t hesitate to ask questions here heidi@monkeyfacephotography.com or comment below! As always to learn more about my photography and work find me here or on facebook.

1. Your files need to be in more than one place!
Nothing in this life is guaranteed to stay the way it once was. CD’s are easy to scratch, break, lose, etc. but, the same goes for prints, hard drives, and even online. So NEVER EVER rely on one source to keep your images safe and sound.

2. Organize, Organize, Organize!
If your child’s 1st birthday pictures are spread out in seven folders on seven different CD’s and two different hard drives you’ll never find the ONE picture you want out of them. ORGANIZE! You will rarely remember exactly where that one picture you’re looking for is. Make sure your system (whatever, it may be) is easy to follow for YOU!

3. MAKE AN ALBUM/BOOK
My biggest suggestion is to  print your pictures in a book. Why do I say this? Well most people automatically organize their pictures to put in books. I personally like to make each book follow a certain occasion, child, event, etc so that I know exactly where to go for what picture. I also prefer books because they are WAY easier to store than prints. If printed well ( I suggest for important events you take your pictures to a professional to first photograph the event and then document it for you, it’ll last forever and you’ll LOVE it!) they will last forever.

4. Find a secondary storing device.
I have an external hard drive as well as an organize CD storage unit that houses my files. There are plenty of online resources for storage as well. Whatever you  use make sure it is easy FOR YOU! (otherwise you’ll end up back here drowning in the files that are EVERYWHERE)

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT leave your files sitting on CD’s unprinted and filed away! CD’s ALL go bad after a long time and files will get corrupted and become unusable. What does that mean? You’ve lost your image! It is gone and NEVER coming back…memory DELETED!

Good luck preserving those memories!
Heidi

Being a wife and mother I have experienced some of these precious moments myself. There are moments I think of and cringe that I never pulled out that camera. I think that a lot of the problem stems back to being unprepared. No one explained when we’ll want pictures taken and how to make them pictures we’ll truly treasure. These will be the pictures we don’t regret spending a single cent on. This is my goal to let you know when, how and where to schedule your portraits, how to preserve them, and give you photoshop tips to scrapbook them.

I would LOVE to hear what you’d like to learn from me! You can email me here heidi@monkeyfacephotography.com with any questions and it may just be the topic of my next post! To check out my work visit my Monkeyface Photography site. I hope you’ll be back to follow up more with me and just to introduce myself I’ve posted a family photo below. Enjoy!

So I didn’t use the collage program to put this together, but it would have been easier and faster if I had. I love this series of shots–my cousin was pouring water on his son’s head during a parade.  Having them presented together makes them stronger than having them apart. I can’t decide if I should put this on a mug or mouse pad, because it just makes me so happy every time I see him!

I haven’t been working much as a photographer, my husband is out of a job, emotionally and physically, I’ve been a wreck. The first two days of the workshop I was a complete headcase, nonetheless in front of 12 complete strangers. It was just as as akward as you would imagine it to be. But things changed and somehow, the tender hand that guides destiny put me in  Bobbie Lane‘s workshop.

I had amazing expereince after amazing expereince with Bobbi as a gifted and nurturing teacher and eight  incredible classmates, and the world’s best course assistant. And the greatest lesson I learned was that sometimes the things we want to learn are not the things we need to learn.

To see more wonderful pictures and fabulous stories come by and visit my blog.

It’s sexy, sinful, and absolutely delicious! Here’s Sara’s own recipe. You can do a substitute for coffee, but I couldn’t tell you what it is, because I was preoccupied walking around the kitchen and taking shots of other things…like these beautiful cupcakes! you can ask the Chicks at The Crafting Chicks. They said she would take notes for me. Just write them and say, “Uh those notes for Marcel, could you pass them my way?” They are all very nice and will be happy to help out.

MOCHA LATTE CUPCAKES
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
½  tsp baking soda
½  tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 egg
½  cup milk
½  cup coffee,cooled

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  With the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until light.  Add the vanilla and egg and mix well.   Combine the milk and coffee.  Sift the dry ingredients directly into the bowl and mix well on a low-medium speed slowly adding the coffee mixture. Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with paper.  Bake for 10-23 minutes.  Cool on a rack.  Frost with Evil Chocolate Frosting,

Evil Chocolate Frosting
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
3 Tablespoons butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons sour cream
Up to 3 Tablespoons milk

In a double broiler, melt butter and chocolate together and stir until smooth.  With an electric mixer, add chocolate mixture, salt, vanilla, sugar  and sour cream together. Beat until smooth and fluffy adding milk as needed for desired consistency.

Food Photography Tips

Here are a few tips if you want to take pictures of your own beautiful creations.

1. Take lots of shots from different angles.
2. Light- Use natural light, so turn off that flash!
3. Setting – Have a nice background that compliments your dish.
4. Color Balance – Set your white balance. If you can’t do this, fix your pictures in editing software after. Food that has a blue or yellow hue is very unappetizing.
5. Stay Still – Use a tripod if you can.

You can see more cupcake shots on my blog, plus I’ll be doing a giveaway for a cooking class at Thanksgiving Point after I return from Santa Fe. Have fun!

More Cupcakes on TodaysMama:

Best Chocolate Cupcakes

Magnolia Vanilla Cupcakes

Frankenstein Cupcakes

I love to shoot in low light conditions so the Clark Planetarium was a treat for me. I did this shot at 1/60 at f2.8 24 mm at 1000 ISO. If you don’t know what any of that means, you don’t need to because The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) and the Clark Planetarium have a 2 for 1 deal going on right now. The UMFA is featuring a fabulous collection of Las Artes de Mexico showing art and artifacts from Mexico. If you go to the exhibit, your ticket will also get you a get a free seat to see “Tales of the Maya Skies” at the Clark Planetarium in the Hansen Dome Theatre. My mom and I took my children and their cousins to the Mayan shown this last week and loved it!  Unfortunately we found out about the deal AFTER we bought our tickets to the Mayan  Skies show, but we still plan on heading up to the UFMA which is located on the University of Utah campus. The Deal last until the middle of September so it’s a great way to escape the heat and enjoy the last days of summer.